Grave of Hummingbirds

by Jennifer Skutelsky

  “I don’t even remember your name,” Rosita said.

  “It’s Finn.”

  “Finn. Maybe I should talk about it. It will be like a . . . like a . . .”

  “Therapy?” he said.

  “Yes. Like therapy.” She fell silent and bent her head to adjust the vee of her blouse.

  Finn waited.

  She looked up and placed her elbows on the table, then rested her long nails against her temples and closed her eyes. “Somebody beat him and cut him up with a hunting knife.”

  Jesus. “Seriously? Why?”

  “Why? He worked for the police. Sometimes that’s enough. He was a homicide detective. Very handsome. He had one eye that was a little bit closed, but he was still sexy, you know? A catch. Alejandro was crazy about me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Finn said.

  Rosita nodded.

  “Did they arrest someone?” His head swam as though he were drunk, although he couldn’t blame the Coke.

  “No, but they will. I hope they do. You don’t want to mess with our police.” She licked her fingers and wiped her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It makes me feel worse. What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No. Not right now.”

  “I could fix that for you,” she said coyly, “but you’re leaving tomorrow. Why the rush?”

  “We’re going to see the Independence Day festival in Colibrí.”

  She stared at him, all traces of seduction and grief gone in an instant. “Colibrí is a terrible place. It’s stupid to go there. And dangerous. You must change your plans.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  She grimaced. “I’ve heard the stories. This same time last year, Alejandro was investigating a murder there.”

  Shocked at her transformation, Finn wondered why a murder committed a year ago should freak her out. People got murdered everywhere, and if her boyfriend was a homicide detective, she’d be used to suspicious death. “Yeah, and so . . . ?”

  “The village is haunted,” she said, voice sharp.

  Finn snorted, then quickly cleared his throat, not wanting to appear rude. “Haunted?”

  “You’re laughing at me? It’s okay, you can laugh. But I tell you, people come back from there and talk about strange things.”

  “What things?”

  “Ghosts. Angels. Mutilations. Disappearances.”

  “Cool. I mean, the part about the ghosts and angels. Not the disappearances. Or the mutilations. That’s kind of gross. What mutilations?”

  “Never mind,” Rosita huffed. “I’m just telling you, you shouldn’t go. There are plenty of other places to celebrate Independence Day.”

  “There are other places where they make a bull run with a condor tied to his back?”

  She studied his face. “No. Colibrí is the only place they still do it. I don’t know why they let it continue.”

  “Well,” Finn said, “it’s why we came. I’m not going back without seeing it for myself.” He felt a headache settle behind his eyes and struggled to keep them open.

  Rosita shook her head. “You’ll go no matter what I say. Just . . . be careful.” She searched his face, her expression anxious. “Promise?”

  He nodded.

  “You should go back to your mother. She’ll worry.”

  Finn stood up and awkwardly brushed his lips against her cheek. He offered to walk her home, but she waved him away.

  “I’m really sorry about your boyfriend,” he said.

  She smiled sadly and wiggled her fingers. “Bye-bye, American.”

  ELEVEN

  There was no sign of Rosita when Sophie and Finn checked out after a quick, morose breakfast of cold toast, frozen butter, rubbery eggs, and burning salsa. Flecks of milk floated in lukewarm, undrinkable coffee.

  They walked to the Plaza de los Condenados, where they boarded a faded blue bus that would take them to Colibrí, a two-hour drive into the mountains. Their luggage was tossed to the roof into the arms of a man with a riotous mustache, his sleeves rolled above his elbows in spite of the winter air.

  They traveled along the Calle de los Sueños, then left the city and turned onto a packed dirt track just wide enough to accommodate the fat, chugging vehicle. The river moved alongside most of the way, splashing over shallow ravines, veering away into the forest, and surging back into view to roar and challenge the grumble of the overburdened bus. The water abandoned them when they began to climb the mountainside, giving way to grassy, terraced hillsides and dense woodland.

  Sophie stared out the window most of the time, ignoring the loud hum of conversations in Spanish, German, and Dutch.

  She had fallen into a shallow sleep when the bus began to veer toward the cliff edge. The driver slowed down and the vehicle sank into a limp, eventually coming to a standstill on a sharp incline.

  “Please,” he shouted, “everybody out.”

  Craning or stooping to see out the windows, passengers lined up to get off. It was just a flat tire, and it would take a few minutes to change. The driver told them they could walk about as long as they stayed close; they must return in fifteen minutes.

  Sophie realized that it might be a while before she could access a restroom. She drew Finn away from the others, asking him to keep a lookout for her as she found a private spot to relieve herself. They walked off into the forest, following a rugged footpath that led up over a hill to a small clearing, where he left her.

  Alone, Sophie breathed deep, inhaling the wood smell of young saplings, moist bark, and damp earth. Quiet settled in her, a soft stillness that magnified the sounds of beating wings and stirring, settling leaves. It seemed to her that the feathery strands and lacy tufts of lichen moved like draped and clustered jewelry on a giant, warm body.

  At the edges of the clearing, moss, gorse, and wild grasses mingled with unexpected displays of pink and yellow—small daisies that seemed not to feel the cold and to see no reason to wait for their appropriate time to flower.

  Sophie used a fallen branch to sweep and prod a small area of long grass, hoping to frighten away anything that might bite. She huddled, self-conscious, exposed to whatever lurked in the darker recesses of thick shrubbery and brushwood.

  When she was done, she stood and adjusted her clothing, then rummaged in her bag for hand sanitizer and tissues. Intent on hurrying back to the bus, she retraced her steps to the crest of the hill.

  The path was gone.

  Confused, Sophie stood before an impenetrable wall of jungle. She studied the shades and patterns of green and sporadic color that now concealed her way out.

  Grounded in science, she trusted what she could observe and logically deduce, and at first, she could conclude only that she’d somehow gotten lost. But as she turned in a slow circle, she discovered that she’d been ambushed by foliage so dense, she’d need a machete to carve her way through.

  She abandoned logic.

  The forest intended to keep her in a curious, benevolent embrace that perplexed rather than frightened her. The plants weren’t aggressive—there was no snaking of strangling vines or mutant stamens out to stab her; they seemed convivial enough, silent now, watching her as though they found her odd and interesting. They gave her a few feet of space and a clear view of the sky, where the sun had begun to touch the tops of taller trees. She stood in a circle of gentle, natural light, a prisoner.

  In the darker hollows beyond sight, something moved.

  Sophie felt eyes on her, and nature’s embrace suddenly took on the menace of a trap. She called out to Finn. Her voice came back a whisper, tremulous, scratchy as a scouring pad. She sensed something close by and stared into the shadows.

  She called out again, spinning in a giddy circle as panic stirred. “Finn, can you hear me? Finn?”

  High above, a bird flew off a branch, the flap of its wings overly loud. Some kind of monkey shrieked.

  Gooseflesh prickled; hot and cold converged as a fight-or-flight response kicked in. She knew
of no remote tribes in the area, but there were a number of villages and at least one drug cartel that she’d stupidly forgotten to consider when she and Finn went traipsing off.

  Fear clogged her throat. She found it hard to breathe.

  Suddenly, a strange vibration thrummed against her eardrums as a sound began to build; a whirring, fluttering purr like the busy wings of a plague of . . .

  What . . . locusts? Bats?

  Expecting the sky to darken with flying rain-forest species, possibly hungry, possibly angry, probably lethal, Sophie thrashed at the creepers, wildly seeking cover. She slapped at the vines, snagging her shirt and scratching her hands, clumsily turned and tripped over a snaking of naked roots. She landed heavily, scampered over to a tree trunk, and sat with her back against the bark, where she covered her head with her arms.

  The noise persisted, louder now.

  Sophie peered upward and saw dozens of . . . giant bumblebees, or maybe wasps—hornets, perhaps—making their way through the trees and shooting toward her in erratic patterns.

  She shrieked and ducked but kept her eyes open, just as one of them dropped in front of her face, where it settled, hovering a foot away from her eyes.

  Slowly Sophie lowered her arms. Her mouth formed an O, and she drew in a hushed gasp.

  It was a hummingbird, fanning her face with tiny wings, poised in place, watching her. Dazzled by its colors, awed at the connection the bird knitted between them, Sophie’s heart stilled to a steady beat. She felt an urge to reach out and raised her hand slowly, palm toward the long curve of its slender beak.

  The bird shimmered, green and magenta colors catching the light, and just as Sophie blinked, it darted away.

  The whirring receded, and she lowered her hand. Ahead of her the path opened up. Climbing to her feet, she scrambled forward and heard Finn yell from the bottom of the hill.

  “Mom?”

  Sophie ran toward him.

  He stared up at her as she moved down the slope. “What happened? Where did you go? We have to get back to the bus.”

  They reached Colibrí twenty minutes later. Stuttering, the bus hissed as it came to a stop, and the driver jumped out to clamber onto the roof, footsteps thudding. Sophie and Finn peeled themselves off the sticky upholstery and moved up the aisle toward the door.

  A child stood behind a stocky old man who lifted a Mickey Mouse suitcase off the overhead wire rack. The little girl looked up at Sophie and tugged on the man’s free hand. He bent toward her in the cramped space as she reached up to whisper in his ear. He straightened and met Sophie’s gaze, his own startled. The child tugged on his hand again, and he said something incomprehensible to Sophie.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

  “My granddaughter. She thinks you’re beautiful.”

  Again the child pulled on his hand. This time he didn’t translate what she’d said and chided her instead before he shook his head apologetically and turned away.

  People shuffled forward. The bus took a pounding on its roof from the driver.

  When the line stopped moving, the child continued to watch Sophie, the back of her head resting in the small of her grandfather’s back as she looked up.

  Sophie smiled and reached out to touch one of the deep-brown braids draped over a thin shoulder, ends spurting from a black band secured with two yellow plastic balls.

  A thickset woman, her hair also braided but into a single thick rope at the nape of her neck, wrestled her way into the space that opened up as they neared the front.

  The girl tripped down the steps behind her grandfather and turned to wave.

  A cold Sophie hadn’t noticed before hit her like a slap as she stepped out. It rained luggage—the driver still tossing bags off the roof with no concern for their landing. The scratches on her hands stung, and for some reason she couldn’t fathom, she had to fight off tears.

  Finn caught his backpack and left Sophie to reach up for hers, shirt pulling out of her jeans as she lifted her arms to catch it. But the driver didn’t throw hers. He handed it down as though it contained something fragile, ignoring the two male passengers who stepped forward to help her.

  Finn was used to the way people looked at Sophie. When they were out together, he often intercepted glances from men, and women, too. Sometimes men with women. It annoyed him, this duplicity, the admiration of an unavailable man for his mother.

  She was hopeless at masking her feelings, and now she looked frightened and lost, jaw set, eyes wide and wet. She hunched over her bag to adjust the straps, hiding her face with her hair. His mother was a maze of contradictions: rash and stubborn, fearful and strong. He’d learned to read her with patience that was lately in increasingly short supply. He no longer tried to distract her from bouts of wrenching empathy for victims of global horrors.

  Her single-mother insecurity—now that he could do something about. She worried about money, and this trip had maxed out a couple of credit cards. In one of the most expensive cities in the United States, Sophie managed to keep them going but not without occasional panic attacks. Soon Finn would start earning, too, and he’d make things easier for her.

  Ever since he could remember, Sophie had shown no interest in dating, and now he wished she would. There was something terribly lonely about his mother that had nothing to do with anything she said and everything to do with his certainty that she structured her whole life around him. If Finn was responsible for her loneliness, how could he save her from it? He wished for a father, not for his sake but hers. In a couple of months, he’d move out of the apartment they shared in West Portal, and then what?

  “Where are we staying, Finn?” Sophie asked.

  “I don’t know. I figured we’d find somewhere when we got here.”

  “What?”

  He walked off, and she had to hurry to keep up with him. This was not a conversation he wanted to have right now.

  “Finn, you mean to tell me . . . ?”

  “We’ll find somewhere, okay?” he tossed over his shoulder.

  As they followed a mixed group of travelers along a cobblestone path, past straggling cottages that formed a buffer between the cliffs and the rest of the village, Sophie began to draw attention. They crossed a stone bridge, and a young man about Finn’s age, riding by on a squealing bicycle, stopped to stare openly at her.

  A woman dressed in a bright-red wool skirt and a poncho watched them from under the brim of a worn cowboy hat, then walked close behind for a short way. Finn saw her join a pair of whispering women, who might as well have pointed. He hung back, stepping away from his mother, allowing some distance to grow between them so he could assess the storm she was gathering. It grew as the crowd thickened, and whispers spread through the streets between the stone-walled cottages.

  A hush followed the mutterings, a shimmering stillness that seemed to surround Sophie and push everyone away, even Finn. Into the weird silence, a humming sound started up, like the far-off rumble of a Harley-Davidson, muffled but sending vibrations through his ears and into his head.

  “Mom,” Finn said loudly. “Mom!” Heads turned slowly to watch her, synchronized, choreographed, bodies unnaturally still beneath the swiveling heads.

  The vibrations stopped and the silence returned. In the eerie suspension of time, pale figures emerged from the cobblestones and levitated above the street. Swaying, rocking, and lurching, they moved toward him, eyes stricken and pleading.

  Finn lashed out with his bag, swirling in a circle, and the bodies stood back, one by one, cowering, retreating between the rock fragments down into the earth. A few remained, staring back at him with wide, reproachful eyes: a woman with long black hair, shivering in a blood-stained slip, with ligature marks on her wrists; a man with black holes for eyes; a bruised teenager, his clothing shredded and skin minced by shrapnel. An old woman with bloody tears in her floral dress approached Finn, tentatively holding out a gnarled, grotesquely twisted hand. She opened broken fingers and three
bullets floated into his palm. When they touched his skin, they turned to dust, which he brushed off on his jeans.

  Finn closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he stood alone, trailing behind Sophie, who had stopped walking and waited for him to catch up.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “You’re very pale, Finn. The altitude here is incredibly high. Are you okay?” She added softly, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we started hallucinating.”

  When he didn’t respond, she tried to touch his forehead to check whether he had a fever. He pulled away, and she walked off again, undoubtedly controlling a sharp reaction. Only when he was sure that real people were moving and talking again did he follow her, recalling Rosita’s warning. While he’d ridiculed her claim that the village was haunted, how else could he explain what he’d just seen? He knew what to expect from the high altitude, but this was too real to be something his own mind had made up.

  Finn and Sophie walked silently together along the packed stone road that branched off now and then into steep lanes, winding up to steps and doorways. Many cottages seemed to have been carved out of the huge moss-covered boulders that reared and loomed over the streets. They got to a busy crossroads, where people stood in chattering clusters or sat on the curb. A few chickens, feathers ruffling in the chill breeze, foraged for crumbs and crawling snacks, and two cows crossed the street on their way to somewhere. A lone pony, his coat thick and shaggy, nibbled on a patch of grass, his reins looped over a hitching rail, while two men lounged close by, drinking from a shared bottle. Children chased one another, shrieking, until they spotted Sophie and Finn. Like everyone else, they stilled and stared.

  Finn caught the bewildered expression his mother cast his way. When he shrugged, mystified, she straightened her back and walked on, dipping her head so that once again, her hair hid her face.

  Conversation resumed as soon as they moved on, but voices changed behind them—they were raised, arguing, urgent. Finn turned to glare at the people who watched, walking backward as Sophie hurried on until they came to an old stone church, built a long time ago in the northeast corner of the square.